Woman rescued from Lincoln house fire, home destroyed

A northeast Lincoln home is destroyed by fire on Monday morning, but a neighbor helps get the resident inside out of the house safely.

Joe Benes told news partner KLIN News on the scene that he saw a nearby home on fire and was concerned the resident was still inside the home near 57th and Adams.

“I beat on the door and didn’t hear anybody, then I beat on the door again and it was open and went inside a little bit,” Benes said. “I yelled ‘your house is on fire, are you ok to get out?’ Smoke rolled out and into my face and the woman came out and we got her out of the house.”

“I’ve never had that experience before,” Benes added.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue crews on the scene of a house fire in northeast Lincoln on Monday morningPHOTO COURTESY: Jane Monnich, KLIN News

Battalion Chief Derald Murrell says that action could have saved her life.

“It’s a good thing that neighbors watch out for each other because that really helps us out a lot,” Murrell said. “We can get reports of all the residents being out of the structure and we don’t have to be real expedient on our search techniques.”

“It helps the fire fighters focus on the fire and the fire tac.”

Battalion Chief Murrell says they continue to knock down hot spots from the fire. Fire crews remained on the scene well into Monday afternoon.

“We’re having a hard time chasing down the hot spots because of the number of roofs and angles of the roofs of the home. That gives us a lot of hot spots to chase down,” Murrell said. “It looks like the covered portion of the back was where the bulk of the fire was at, it did extend into the attic and into the back side of the house a little bit.”

There were no injuries in the fire. A cause of the fire has yet to be determined.